I focus on the strategic, economic and business implications of defense spending as the Chief Operating Officer of the non-profit Lexington Institute and Chief Executive Officer of Source Associates. Prior to holding my present positions, I was Deputy Director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University and taught graduate-level courses in strategy, technology and media affairs at Georgetown. I have also taught at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. I hold doctoral and masters degrees in government from Georgetown University and a bachelor of science degree in political science from Northeastern University. Disclosure: The Lexington Institute receives funding from many of the nation’s leading defense contractors, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and United Technologies.

The Wrong-Headed Reasons Why People Believe The Worst About The Defense Industry

The climax of White House Down, with Jamie Foxx playing the president at center screen. In response to the president's efforts to forge a Middle East peace, right-wing extremists backed by the "military-industrial complex" have seized control of the White House and attempted to launch nuclear missiles against Iran. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Over the July 4th holiday my sixteen-year-old son and I went to see director Roland Emmerich’s latest action-adventure movie, White House Down. We like every movie he makes, thanks to amazing special effects, apocalyptic themes and appealing characters. But his latest film is a departure from the end-of-the-world fare for which he is best known, such as Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and 2012. It features an armed assault on the White House by right-wing extremists intent on going to war in the Middle East, with funding provided by a rapacious defense industry.

Emmerich’s movie has me thinking about why the defense industry gets such negative treatment in popular culture. We tend to lionize our warfighters as selfless patriots no matter what the cause, but we don’t have much use for the contractors who provide them with world-class weapons. In fact, many Americans seem ready to embrace the most lurid conspiracy theories about what makes the “military-industrial complex” tick. Having spent much of my adult life working with the defense industry, I know the people who lead it are pretty much like executives in other economic sectors. But critics often depict them as a unique genus of corporate evil-doers, “merchants of death” to use the colorful phrase of antiwar legislators in the 1930s.

It isn’t so obvious why people are willing to believe the worst about U.S. weapons makers. In general, their products work well — so well, in fact, that they are in high demand around the world. Not only do they protect the U.S. homeland from attack, but they enable America to keep the peace in distant lands and thereby secure its interests around the world. And their claim on the nation’s finances isn’t all that great — roughly 1% of gross domestic product for technology that deters nuclear war and finds terrorists no matter where they hide. Sounds like a bargain to me. Others, though, see it much differently. Here’s why I think they do.

First of all, war is an incredibly wasteful enterprise. It cost about $550 billion in today’s dollars to build the interstate highway system, and the Pentagon currently spends more than that every year. Most of the money goes to people rather than weapons, but the U.S., with 5% of the world’s population, buys about as much advanced military technology as the rest of the world combined. So voters can’t help thinking about the opportunity costs of all that military spending, especially when they see combat systems being junked or left behind at the end of overseas conflicts. A peculiar feature of deterrence is that when weapons are really fearsome they may end up never being used, which feeds doubts about whether they were needed at all.

Second, the defense industry’s main customer is the government, which means its money comes from taxpayers. It isn’t hard for taxpayers to see the benefits of domestic programs such as highways or healthcare, but many of them never see tangible evidence of where military dollars go. Instead they rely on intermediaries in the news media to shape their perceptions of whether defense funds are being spent well, and when it comes to weapons the coverage is almost alwaysnegative. Most weapons are too complicated to explain quickly, so reporters only make the effort if there is big news to report – like a crash or a billion-dollar cost overrun. As a result, taxpayers are constantly getting the message that the defense industry is misusing their money.

Third, politicians recognize that criticizing warfighters is a potentially career-ending mistake. Nobody in the political system ever attacks military personnel because they are the people who put their lives on the line for America. Defense contractors, on the other hand, are viewed as comfortably profiting on the home front from the sacrifices of our soldiers and sailors. The fact that many of the uniform personnel don’t deploy to combat zones while many of the contractors do is conveniently overlooked, because the military personnel have political clout through their professional associations while defense contractors have much weaker protection. Weapons makers thus are the preferred target when any aspect of the military enterprise goes wrong.

Fourth, much of what the defense industry does is secret. The government doesn’t even admit the existence of some major systems the industry produces, and access to details about weapons is usually restricted. Just try finding any facts about the Air Force’s new bomber. Thus, industry often can’t respond when critics make outlandish claims about the purpose or performance of particular weapons. Even if companies aren’t hemmed in by security rules, they fear ”getting out ahead of the customer” in their public statements. Rather than risking relations with their main source of revenue, the usual practice in the sector is to lay low no matter what critics say — enabling the least responsible critics to spread ridiculous rumors.

Fifth, most people lack a frame of reference for what modern weapons systems should cost. That’s important because while few citizens would claim to understand synthetic-aperture radars or low-observable (“stealth”) technologies, everybody thinks they understand a price-tag. So when they hear that the cost of the most common version of the new F-35 fighter will eventually settle out around $75 million each in today’s dollars, that sounds pricey. But does it still sound high if I tell you that Gulfstream’s latest business jet lists for $65 million, or that a BoeingBoeing 777 lists for $300 million? Those planes aren’t designed to survive the rigors of aerial combat. In other words, the defense industry sometimes gets assailed because critics don’t know what capital goods cost.

Sixth, although the defense industry is a good fit for recent security challenges, it doesn’t fit so easily into U.S. political culture. Contrary to the belief of many liberals that the ”military-industrial complex” is allied with conservatives, it is actually an orphan outside any political jurisdiction where it creates jobs. Many Republicans view it as one more manifestation of big government, the closest thing that America has produced to industrial socialism. Thus, when the Cold War ended, defense secretary Dick Cheney killed a hundred major weapons programs while exhibiting little concern for the sector’s health. Donald Rumsfeld refused to meet with any industry executives during his entire six years as defense secretary. It’s amazing how similar libertarians and liberals sound on the subject of weapons makers.

I don’t want to leave the impression that negative perceptions of the defense industry are groundless. The word “shoddy” entered our vocabulary during the Civil War to describe an inferior type of cloth contractors used to make uniforms for the Union Army. Every major war brings its share of malfeasance and misfeasance among military contractors. But compared with the past, the U.S. defense industry of today is as professionally managed and honestly operated as any in history. Much of what the public thinks it knows about the industry is a caricature of reality – stereotypes propounded to advance the agendas of critics. War may be humanity’s greatest curse, but having the tools to win is a whole lot better than being unequipped for combat.

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